Till now three lyricists have won the Dada Saheb Phalke Award- Majrooh Sultanpuri, Kavi Pradeep and Gulzar. Out of this, Gulzar is not merely a lyricist but also an important director, while the other two are largely known as poet and lyricist. So Majrooh Sultanpuri was the first lyricist to win the Dada Saheb Phalke Award in 1993.
Majrooh Sultanpuri interestingly had a low opinion about Indian cinema and called it nautanki. He was also a staunch communist and was in prison for criticising Jawaharlal Nehru calling him “Hitler ka Chela”. Majrooh Sultanpuri won the greatest award of Indian cinema despite not winning any major film award. Majrooh Sultanpuri only won one Filmfare Award in his 5 decades long career for the song Chahunga Main Tujhe Saanjh Savere from the film Dosti (1964).
Kavi Pradeep is most popularly known for writing “Ae Mere watan ke logo” and was known for writing patriotic songs like “Door Hato ae Duniyawalo Hindustan Hamara hai”, “Chal Chal re Naujawan”, “De Di hame Aazadi bina” etc. He was awarded the Dada Saheb Phalke Award in 1997.
Gulzar won the Dada Saheb Phalke Award in 2013 who has won around 20 Filmfares and 8 National Awards most by any lyricist even though he has won awards not just for lyrics but also for directing films like Koshish, Aandhi, Mausam, Ijazat etc and writing scripts and dialogues of films like Anand, Namak Haram, Guddi etc. Gulzar has also been a prolific writer who has written works like Raavi Paar which became the basis for his National Award winning film Maachis.